Someone will remember Alberto Lenzi, the petty judge who left Mimmo Gangemi’s pen and brought on TV by Luca Zingaretti. At one point in the last novel of the series, The pact of the judge, The author makes Lenzi say about San Michele Arcangelo a strange thing. It makes him manifest the hope that it will decide: «Finally to dissolve the doubt and remove from the impaccio, choosing from the ‘ndranghetists and policemen – the two categories under protection – the last “.
An incomprehensible joke to those who do not know that the novel, in this phrase, ironic and malice, fishing in a historical fact: San Michele Arcangelo is out of doubt the patron saint of the police, who not surprisingly celebrates his party on September 29thon San Michele’s day. But thereAnd of True Even in the second part of the “petty judge” joke: Organized crime, it has always appropriates, in its affiliation rites, of religious symbols and San Michele resorts, so to speak for the wings, called as a witness of the entry and passage rites of the ‘Ndrangheta (but the mechanism is similar for Cosa Nostra) According to a pseudoliturgia parare religious starting from the names of the distributed hierarchical charges. Not only that, an image of the Archangel Michele Bimciacchiata was found in the pocket of one of the victims of the Duisburg massacre in Germany in 2007, an unequivocal proof, the Burcus Santino, which thousands of kilometers from Calabria a rite of affiliation had to have happened.
It is a question of understanding what they were to do, he was also in a deviated imagination, the saints with these rites and for San Michele to be one of the privileged objects of this reverse devotion. In this It helps us an order for precautionary custody issued in 1993 in Reggio Calabriain which regarding the affiliation rites of the ‘Ndrangheta we read: «We must give a oath under which the new Saintness is obliged to betray also family members in order to safeguard the” saint “(the criminal company that is formed in the ed.). Until a rudeist (another of the degrees ed.) The protector is San Michele Arcangelo, who represents justice and therefore respect for the rules. With the Saint, justice and rules end and the only purpose of the new structure is self -preservation at any cost ».
As you can see, in this explanation we recognize the iconography of San Michele that tradition paints with the signs of justice: the scale and the sword. According to Daniele’s book the Archangel is “the great prince who supervises the children of the people of God”. In the Apocalypse he goes down to war against Satan by causing him to fall with his angels, which returns it to the imagination and devotion as: “Alfiere of the good that stands in defense of the righteous”, definition of Gianfranco Ravasi. It is more complicated to understand what to do to do the symbols of faith and justice, moreover combined, with criminal organizations that sow violence and death.
We asked for lights a Enzo Cicontehistorian, professor of history of the mafias at the University of Pavia, the autoror of an essay entitled Criminal rites That precisely these things deals: “The ‘ndranghetists completely instrumentally consider San Michele their protector, because according to the mythology internal to the’ ndrangheta, of which obviously – I say it to avoid misunderstandings – I do not share a comma, the ‘ndrangheta would bring justice”. It is a reversal, an undue appropriation of values that are continuously found in the minutes that report affiliation formulas: a continuous recalling to positive concepts in itself as friendship, respect, honor, justice, all bent however to the criminal partnership.
“Catholic religion”, explains Ciconte “is one of these exploited values. The mafias have not invented anything: they copy the world around. Hierarchies are given as the state also does and if they do not call them degrees but “skills” or “flowers” is only because in their imagination the degrees have the “cops” with whom nothing want to shake. They mimic the liturgy, because they need it to cloak the organization of charm, to give a fascination of eternity to a definitive bond: whoever enters does not come out except with death. But never young people and ordinary people would have related to life for an organization that proposed to kill and steal only ».
This was repeated by scholars and magistrates, the all -instrumental religion of the mafia has historically served to organize consent: «They understood from the beginning», Continues Ciconte,”that in the south there was strong attachment to the Catholic religion and used it – in Sicily as in Calabria – to creditate from the part that people felt like right, because if no one had done it would ever follow them. In this way they have sought and try to affirm a principle of non -contradiction between religion and mafia organization: a mere calculation of consent and performance of power, which is still the basis of the now well -known bows during religious processions and the race to bring the statues of the saints. I am convinced that there is no overlap between the mafia religion and the religion of the Catholics: the religion of the mafia is a form of paganism, it is a pure exploitation. Otherwise we would have among the mafia the same percentage of agnostics that we have in the population of the territories in which we find them and instead there are no agnostic or atheists mafia: all believers ».
It is a question of understanding believers in which God. Probably in what they used and use, as Annachiara Valle writes, in Santa Malavita organized: “To be accepted by people, to confuse it in judging good and evil”. In what the anthropologist Alessadra Dino in The devoted mafia He defined: «A God without tenderness and love, which does not know the gratuity (…). In the name of this God, the offense becomes lawful, the abuse becomes justice, intimidation becomes respect. (…) A private God who does not belong to the very nature of the Gospel ».
It is in this context that phenomena in our eyes, extremely contradictory, such as the story of Beretta, ultrà dell’Ater, who has revealed to the Milanese investigators of being the principal of the Bellocco murder, for which the crime for which the aggravating mafia and for which, on April 12, 2025, six people sent by the DDA of Milan were arrested, must be enrolled in our eyes. Padre Pio appeared in a certain story. Beretta told the investigators that he started with his wife on the day of the crime to Pietrelcina to “ask for forgiveness and grace from Padre Pio” of which he said he was “very devoted”.
Although, as he also told on several occasions of public meetings, Alessandra Dolci, coordinator of the DDA of Milan, at least in Lombardy, it is less and less frequent to attend affiliation rites with Santini and ritual formulas. Compared to the crimnine-infinity survey, in which it was filmed for the first time in history one in the history of anti-mafia investigations along the boot, right in the province of Milan. “They were almost disappeared,” said Dolci the same in 2024 in Pavia, “affiliation rites and the so -called” spy crimes “, such as fires and damage, today the organized crime indicators are more often SOS (signaling suspicious operations) and by cases of fraudulent bankruptcy”, this because using economic crime and reducing the most flashy signals. of “sinking” to go unnoticed.
But then the murder Bellocco came, who also surprised the investigators, in the shade of the curves of San Siro: a murder of the Lombard mafia, after a long time, and also the corollary devotion has reappeared.
